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Too Human Meets Mediocre Reviews
Earlier this week, the long anticipated action-adventure game, Too Human, was finally released for the Xbox 360. After being in various stages of development for about a decade, the game made its US debut to overall lackluster marks. Gamespot weighed in with a 5.5/10, while IGN gave it a slightly more favorable 7.8. Developer Denis Dyack from Silicon Knights defended the game, saying players didn't yet "get it," and that it was "so innovative that we have put some people off." The game's reception in Japan has been similar.
Just because you have the skills to develop a game, does not mean you know how to develop a gaming experience.
There are developers that know how to develop entertaining gaming experience, and their are dev's that just know how to make games without a decent ability to judge whether or not what they are developing is exciting, interesting and entertaining and doesn't suck.
This is a big problem in the industry as far as I'm concerned, there is just too many clueless people (pub's and developers) about how to build entertainment. I think the biggest problem is still the technology. There is so much time and money consuming technical engineering that it overtakes the money and time needed to develop the entertainment aspect. Too much on art and engines, not enough on developing interesting things and connecting them with skill.
Striking a balance is hard, I agree, but that's the business you're really in: Entertainment. Game developers have to be good at knowing entertainment as well as engineering. It's hard, no doubt... and sometimes you just want to keep trying just doing your own thing (which is also valid) but if you want to do your own thing, you got to go back to small time games and understand what aspects of both the art, and the interaction of the objects, makes the game. Some indie game developers know this, they know what is wrong with the industry.
I think most of the "buzz" surrounding Too Human was mostly about how long the game has been in development and Silicon Knights' very public fallout with Epic. After spending a lot of money on Epic's Unreal Engine, SK then claim it was delivered unfinished and un-usable, and that promised enhancements were ignored while Epic used the time and money to finish their own competing game. Ultimately, Silicon Knights sued Epic and then say they rewrote the game and authored their own complete game engine. The whole lawsuit thing is a bit of a spectacle, especially since no other dev houses seem to have anything bad to say about Epic's Unreal Engine.
I'd say this is less hype about Too Human itself and more about watching this train wreck unfold.
{ - Generic Guy - }
Meet is used all the time in English! Superbowl teams meet victory! I go to the grocery to meet food! Transplant patient meets new kidney!
It's a perfectly cromulent word in this situation.
It's changed significantly since it was announced. Also, it's been on (in order), the PS1, GameCube, and now X360. It also started out as futuristic Sci-Fi, and now it's Gothic Norse.
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BioShock
Deus Ex
Half-Life
Half-Life 2
System Shock
System Shock 2
Thief
Thief II
Half-Life 2 and BioShock are the only ones that were released after Halo.
Whatever credibility you might have had just vanished. Poof. Gone.
The only thing I remember about Halo's story is that someone's going to activate Halo and it's going to kill everyone, and then Master Chief stops it.